[2][3] Variations of the Armenian duduk appear throughout the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Middle East, including Bulgaria, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kurdistan, Turkey, and Iran.

Энциклопедия) and American book Musical Instruments, A Comprehensive Dictionary give an ultimate origin of the name as Persian, the word tutak.

[15]) By using the lips to "bend" notes and partially covering holes any pitch in this range can be produced, as required for Oriental music.

Unlike other double-reed instruments, the reed is quite wide, helping to give the duduk both its unique, mournful sound, as well as its remarkable breathing requirements.

This is a blocked-end flute known as a kaval, resembling the Serbian frula, or kavalče in a part of Macedonia,[22] and as duduk in northwest Bulgaria.

Starting with Peter Gabriel's score for Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, the duduk's archaic and mournful sound has been employed in a variety of genres to depict such moods.

[26] In the TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, its computer-altered sound was given to the fictitious Tsungi horn, most notably played by Iroh and often being featured in the show's soundtrack.

The sound of the duduk was also used in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for a lullaby which Mr. Tumnus plays on a fictitious double flute and in the theme song of the Dothraki clan during the TV adaptation Game of Thrones.

[27][28] Armenia's entry in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, "Apricot Stone," featured Armenian musician Djivan Gasparyan playing the duduk.

The duduk has been used in a number of films, especially "to denote otherworldliness, loneliness, and mourning or to supply a Middle Eastern/Central Asian atmosphere".